Roger Jongewaard’s career in major league baseball was so unique that you could smell bacon and eggs cooking in the background.

The former Poly High catcher was working at the family restaurant, the Bake ‘n Broil on Atlantic, when he bumped into Harry Minor, the Wilson High legend and New York Mets scout at the time and mentioned that he’d like to get back into baseball.

“The day we met, he was delivering bread,” Minor said with a chuckle Thursday.

It was a short trip from the bread truck to a 40-year career as a major league scout for Jongewaard.

One of the most revered scouts in the game, Jongewaard passed away Monday from a heart attack at the age of 76, only a few years after retiring. He leaves behind a large personal family and an even larger baseball family marked by young Southern California baseball players that he scouted and drafted over the years.

As the area scout for the New York Mets, he was instrumental in the drafting and signing of Darryl Strawberry, Mike Scott, Lenny Dykstra, Kevin Mitchell, Billy Beane and Lakewood’s Mike Fitzgerald.

Later with Seattle, he did likewise for the Mariners in selecting Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriquez, Edgar Martinez, Tino Martinez and Jason Varitek.

This was during an era of scouting when a regional scout’s report carried more stock than the current one where consensus and a full Sabermetrics report has more importance than the opinion of the person who has seen the player the most.

“When Roger liked a player, he would stick his neck out to get that player,” Minor said. “He would really want some players so badly.”

So much so that he occasionally overruled the entire scouting room and even the owner. In 1987, Mariners owner George Argyros, who lived in Orange County, wanted to draft a college pitcher he had seen, Cal State Fullerton’s Mike Harkey. Argyros wanted someone who could help the team immediately. Jongewaard insisted he select a high school outfielder named Ken Griffey Jr., who was in the major leagues by 1989.

In 1993, the Mariners were prepared to take Wichita State pitcher Darren Dreifort with the first pick but Jongewaard argued the decision long enough, and over the head of other scouts, to instead take a high school shortstop named Alex Rodriguez.

“Roger was a great judge of talent,” Minor said. “He had a real feel for whether a kid could make it at the next level and how quickly. He made the kids he scouted feel comfortable, too.”

“He’s a very low-key guy, but he’s not afraid to tell you what’s on his mind if you ask him,” longtime general manager Pat Gillick said in a Press-Telegram story a decade ago. “He draws his own conclusions on things, and it’s healthy when he has a different opinion.”

Jongewaard was a standout catcher at Poly, a tall left-handed hitter, who signed with Milwaukee out of high school and spent six years in the minors, his last stop being Seattle in the Pacific Coast League in 1959. His last activity on the field, however, was at Wrigley Field, where he was one of the catchers in the “Home Run Derby” TV show that featured major league sluggers.

“It wasn’t that big a deal,” Jongewaard said of the experience. “They needed a catcher and I was living in Long Beach. I’m not even sure if I got paid. I played with Hank Aaron in spring training so it wasn’t like I didn’t know who those guys were.”

He then got into the family business and also spent some time as a bullpen catcher for the Los Angeles Angels – hired by another Poly product, Rocky Bridges – before bumping into Minor.

“He asked me what was the best way to get involved,” Minor said. “I was going to a game at Los Alamitos High and he came with me. I could see he had a feel for it.

“So I hired him, and then he started hiring some of his drivers as free agent scouts.”

Most of the drivers were former ballplayers, and one was his brother Dean, who is still a scout with Philadelphia.

Roger left the Mets for a full-time position with Detroit and earned a World Series ring as part of the 1984 Tigers title team. He was then hired by Seattle, first as director of scouting, and then vice president of scouting and player development.

He worked with Tampa Bay and Florida before retiring. He was referenced in the book and movie “Moneyball” as the scout who was high on Beane, the Mets’ draftee who didn’t pan out and instead became a scout and eventually Oakland’s general manager at the forefront of sabermetrics.

Jongewaard was inducted into the R.B.I. Hall of Fame in 1996 for his work with inner-city baseball programs. He received a Distinguished Service to Baseball award in 1999 from Topps. Baseball America gave him its Roland Hemond Award for Lifetime Achievement in Baseball in 2004 and named him West Coast Scout of the Year in 2005.

Jongewaard is survived by his wife, Carol, four children, Terry, Janice, Kristin and Don, and 12 grandchildren. In February, he lost his daughter Dyan, who was a bat girl for Skip Rowland’s Wilson teams as a teenager, to cancer.

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